Read Articles of Hope


June 17, 2020

Am I Going Crazy? I Lost My Husband In An Accident Over 25 Years Ago

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, I lost my husband in an accident over 25 years ago while we were getting ready for his grandmother’s funeral. There were so many unanswered questions, as our daughter was only a year old and she is now nearing 30. But my question is why I still have my moments of tears and sadness. I can talk about it, and I will tear up as if it just happened. I still function, but I feel like I’m not where I ought to be in life. Can you help me understand? – Connie Dear Connie, As you have found, with the death of a loved one life changes in an instant, but the repercussions can be felt for an eternity.
June 16, 2020

The Health Benefit of Tears with Timeless Reunion Photos

For over twenty years as a physician, I've witnessed, time and again, the healing power of tears. Tears are your body's release valve for stress, sadness, grief, anxiety, and frustration. Also, you can have tears of joy, say when a child is born, or tears of relief when a difficulty has passed. In my own life, I am grateful when I can cry. It feels cleansing, a way to purge pent-up emotions so they don't lodge in my body as stress symptoms, such as fatigue or pain. To stay healthy and release stress, I encourage my patients to cry. For both men and women, tears are a sign of courage, strength, and authenticity.
June 16, 2020

Being Stoic For Another

In the wealth of studies about parental grief, little attention has been paid to precisely how couples relate to each other as they struggle to come to terms with the death of a child. A new study addresses this gap in bereavement research by focusing on the way that couples together process the grief of losing a child. Among life's many tragedies, the death of a child is one that is perhaps the greatest for parents. No matter what the age of the child or the cause of death, the irrefutable fact of the loss is one that shatters the normal cycle of life, leaving parents traumatized and often incapacitated by grief.
June 12, 2020

Everything Turns Out Okay

When I was three and a half years old, I went crashing into a glass door on the first floor of my family’s home in Chevy Chase, Md. The worst damage was not from my arm going through the door, but from it coming back out. A shard of glass, still fixed in the door frame, entered my arm at the armpit and then, as I fell backward and down to the ground, it sliced open my arm all the way up to the wrist. I suffered complete severing of my radial artery, and total or partial transection of the radial, ulnar, and median nerves, and of various muscles.